"In thet leetle hole thar, one gun kin hold back a whole mob an' ef ye gits away I reckon ye kin git some friends an' come back, kain't ye?"
"Ef I kin make Pinnacle Rock an' light a fire thar—I kin hev a score of men hyar in two hours' time—but two hours——" He broke off with a groan.
"Then do hit. I kin hold 'em back longer then thet. Ef they does git in, I'll pretend ye jest left by ther backway. They won't harm me nowhow."
He doubted that, but he knew that his staying meant ultimate death for both of them, and that once outside he had a chance to rally his forces for her rescue. For a little longer his reluctance to abandon her even temporarily held him in quandary, then realizing that it offered the only hope, he seized her fingers in a tight grasp and whispered:
"Farewell—then. God be with ye twell I gits back."
He worked his way along a twisting passage hitherto known only to spiders and bats until at length he could see a yellow shred of westering sky through a narrow rent in the blackness. As he edged his body through the rift he heard a rifle shot reverberating brokenly through the twisting tunnels, followed by a dogged spatter of response—or was it only echo? He ground his teeth and poised himself precariously on a foothold, inches wide, and treacherously insecure. He measured the distance to a hickory branch that the wind rocked and between its support and himself was emptiness. The scaly bark of the limb for which he must leap was near the top of a tree whose roots were planted fifty feet lower.
Turner gathered his muscles into elastic readiness—and plunged outward. There was an instant of terrific uncertainty, then he swung pendulum-like, upon a support that sagged and gave under his weight as he hooked his knees about the branch and drank in a deep breath of thanksgiving.
Blossom, kneeling unseen and partly protected by a sandstone barricade, had been peering out at the broken gulches which were already filling with a dusky gray. She must keep those alley ways clear and there were two of them. A twilight depression gnawed at her heart.
Finally she saw a furtive and leering face thrust slowly and cautiously around the angle of stone. Her pulses pounded, but her rifle was trained, and her hands unshaking. For the first time since Henderson's murder, something like a thrill warmed her veins. Now she could hit back and avenge and take a man's chance of death in doing it. Then the man, bent on reconnaissance, ventured a forward step. He had not come quite far enough to see the opening itself though he knew that it must be hidden somewhere among those bowlders. He peered with lynx-like eagerness—ready to leap back if need be—and Blossom pressed her trigger. Without a groan the figure wilted down and lay in grotesque shapelessness between the rocks.
The fusillade which came in response was random and ineffective, and the girl, nerved to battle, found the long and anxious silence which ensued a purgatory of suspense. At the end she knew they would attempt to overwhelm defense in a charge and the passing minutes ate like decay into the tissue of her courage. Then what she dreaded came. They were making a rush through both alleys at once. If they succeeded in crossing the twenty feet of open danger, they could spread out on each side of the cave's mouth, themselves safe by reason of the angle, and seal the place up like a tomb.